The adventures of a Fleetwood amateur astronomer

This is how it remained, until a few years ago when my interest was rekindled. A friend’s stepfather worked at a local refuse tip and asked me if I would like to have a telescope he had rescued from a skip. It was a 4½-inch reflector with a grey tube, at the bottom of which was a mirror, with a focusing rack at the top of the tube. It sat on a rather rusted tripod with extendable legs, but after a little cleaning and the application of oil I found the tripod and its mount were useable so after all these years I had at last the kind of equipment I had dreamed about as a child. And for free! For the next few months, I was out every night the skies were clear, learning the procedures and techniques required for astronomy along with a fellow stargazing buff.

It soon became apparent to me that this telescope, although usable, was very worn and so became difficult to use. So I decided to buy something a little better and more recent. For the princely sum of £70 I purchased another 4½-inch reflecting telescope from the cash convertors shop in Blackpool. Finished in shiny gloss paint it came with an assortment of eyepieces and was in almost mint condition. I got stuck into using this new telescope and retired the old silver one. Then I came into possession of two more telescopes both donated by a kind friend who also had an interest in astronomy. The first telescope was another reflector but with a larger 6-inch mirror and the second one was a beautiful refractor with a large 5-inch lens. Using all 3 telescopes I had some amazing views of the moon and the planets such as Jupiter (Wow!), Saturn, Venus and Mars. However, the only deep sky objects (the term given to any galaxy, star cluster or nebula in the night sky) I had seen where the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades in Taurus both easy to locate. The reason for this paucity of viewed targets was because all three telescopes had to be moved manually around the night sky and most deep sky objects are small and faint, so you must star hop to their locations which is not easy at all with a manually operated telescope mount.

In the early months of 2020, I decided to take the next step in my astronomy education and buy myself something called a goto telescope. These telescopes have computer driven motors in their mounts and can also track an object once it has been located and keep it still wit